Here’s the problem. You have a two Windows VM’w (one of them an AD, another a server that uses the first as its Active Directory). You want these two VM’s to remain in synch, and they both must see each other on the local, virtual network, but you also want them both to be able to reach the shared internet connection used by your Mac). What now? You main challenge is ensuring that the Windows Server that isn’t the Active Directory (AD) won’t have name resolution issues.

Core Question: How can two servers on a private network both share the host internet access AND always see each other, particularly when one of those client machines is both an Active Directory (AD) as well as DNS server for the private network???

Step 3 – Take VM#2 (your server that will access the AD server), set the VMware Network Adapter to “Share with My Mac” (which is NAT, essentially). Configure the network settings as so.

IP:172.16.165.11
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway:172.16.165.2
DNS Server: 172.16.165.10 (note that we use the AD server as the DNS server).

This allows VM#2 to use the AD server for authentication and any DNS within your private network. This allows VM#1 to act as both DNS and AD locally, but passes through any other requests to the host system.

So, since you are now using static IP’s, when you VM’s startup, they can always find each other…. good news!